A Travel Blog About Latin America

I loved the countries and the cultures so much that I figured I was destined to earn my keep south of the border.

So, I went down every Internet rabbit-hole I could find to try to figure out how to live and work in Latin America: teaching English, hostel work, international corporations, hotels, sales, transcription, writer, bartender, house-sitter, etc. I was open to anything...

As much as I try to forget, the first time I had sex will always be burned in my memory.

It was around a decade ago. I was in high school (late bloomer) and I got a summer job working on a corn farm. I'd wake up at the crack of dawn, harvest corn until noon and then deliver it to various produce stands around the city.

Mikaela worked at one of these stands. She was a year older than me and went to the high school across town. About 5'7", long blonde hair and brown eyes. Thin as a twig but somehow was blessed with an ass that disobeyed gravity...

These days, the majority of the emails I receive (aside from hate mail, of course) have something to do with relocating to Latin America. Students that are wondering where to do a year abroad, retired men who are looking to say adios to the United States, digital nomads who are looking for a good base to settle down for a few months...folks from all kinds of backgrounds who are looking to live south of the border for various reasons.

Usually, they're trying to sort out which city in Latin America would be best for them to live in. Here are some less-obvious answers to that question.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy having a crew to hangout with, hit the bars with and bounce shit off of, but I am also very comfortable with being alone.

I've always been that way.

If I arrive to a city where I don't know a soul, I'll have to go out to bars and clubs solo. And after much trial and error, I think I've finally figured out how to do it without looking like a rapist or serial killer.

Amazing beaches, dynamic cities, friendly locals...and all at a fraction of the cost of the USA.

But, as we all know, moving to another country isn't easy. There's a process. Unless you want to live your life doing endless border hops every six months (it is an option..we'll get to that a bit later) you're going to need to meet some basic requirements before you can legally settle down south.

I'm going to go through these options with you now. Here is how you can move to Mexico.

My journey to Spanish competency has been long and tumultuous. It started with Spanish classes in Mexico (which I promptly quit after just a week), then moved on to audio courses (most of which I slept through) and finally to Latin music and telenovelas, with which I finally began making some progress.

Initially, my goal was simple: learn Spanish to meet women. But it took me months of stumbling through learning methods before I was finally able to hold down a basic conversation on a discotec dance floor (discotec is Spanish for "nightclub," by the way).

If only I had discovered a course tailored to my *ahem* ultra specific needs at the time, I would have saved myself a lot of fruitless effort, valuable time and money.